Revolution and Evolution
A Report on the 2006 Convention Resolutions

From the Editor:
Sharon Maneki chairs the Resolutions Committee. In the following article she
briefly describes each resolution brought for consideration by the 2006 Convention.
This is what she says:

The 2006 convention agenda
had an intriguing title: "The Kurzweil–National Federation of the Blind Reader:
The Revolution is Here!" I was struck by the appropriateness of this title as
a description of our new portable reading machine. During the Resolutions Committee
meeting on July 2, James Gashel, the director of strategic initiatives for the
National Federation of the Blind, had the Kurzweil–National Federation of the
Blind Reader read his proposed resolution to the committee. The machine read
the material without missing a word and with no pronunciation errors.

The term "revolutionary"
applies not only to the Kurzweil–National Federation of the Blind Reader, but
also to the National Federation of the Blind. One definition of "revolution"
is: a drastic and far-reaching change in ways of thinking and behaving. This
definition certainly describes the philosophy of our movement. Our positive
outlook on blindness was definitely revolutionary in 1940 when Dr. Jacobus tenBroek
founded the Federation.

Each year the Convention
considers resolutions to determine the policies and future goals of the organization.
When attempting to categorize the resolutions passed at the 2006 convention,
I found that some of them are definitely revolutionary, while others were better
classified as evolutionary. Some resolutions are policy statements that have
evolved over the years, while others represent new ways of thinking about blindness.

In my opinion the Convention
passed two resolutions that may be considered revolutionary and ten that demonstrate
an evolution in our thinking. Another theme in the 2006 resolutions was access,
including access to programs, to independent travel, and to information. A summary
of the 2006 convention resolutions follows.

Resolution 2006-01 will
revolutionize opportunities for blind people through a Braille literacy campaign
that we will conduct in accordance with the Louis Braille commemorative coin
legislation. In this resolution we commend Congressmen Ney and Cardin and Senators
Santorum and Dodd for working with us to promote this important legislation,
which passed the House of Representatives on February 28, 2006, and passed the
Senate on June 29, 2006. Through the Louis Braille coin campaign, the Federation
resolves to welcome "all blind and sighted citizens to a country in which differences
in the way citizens perform tasks like reading are seen as irrelevant to competence
and success…." Jesse Hartle, a program specialist in the governmental affairs
department of the National Federation of the Blind, who worked tirelessly on
this legislation, was the proponent of resolution 2006-01.

Carrie Gilmer, secretary
of the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children, introduced a revolutionary
resolution, 2006-07. Teachers of blind students, their training programs, and
the institutions that provide services to blind children and adults, often refer
to themselves as "vision teachers," "vision classes," and "vision programs."
In this resolution we condemn and deplore this practice and demand that professionals
replace the term "vision" with the term "blind" when describing a program or
activity. Replacing "vision" with the term "blind" will bring about a revolutionary
change in thinking because it will indicate to blind students "that no shame
attaches to their being blind, that eyesight is not the sole link to success,
that the value and potential of human beings are completely unrelated to the
possession of sight …."

Resolutions 2006-04 and
2006-06 are good examples of policies that have evolved over the years. Both
of these resolutions were sponsored by Peggy Elliott, second vice president
of the National Federation of the Blind and president of the Iowa affiliate.
Resolution 2006-04 affirms our long commitment to eliminate the minimum wage
exemption for blind workers in the Fair Labor Standards Act. In this resolution
we urge National Industries for the Blind and the United States Congress to
work closely with us to ensure that all blind workers are paid at least the
minimum wage.

Resolution 2006-06 advocates
various reforms in the Javits-Wagner-O'Day (JWOD) Program. This program was
established during the Depression to create jobs for blind people by allowing
nonprofit agencies employing the blind to have a priority in the sale of products
to the federal government. Recently the Committee on Health, Education, Labor
and Pensions (HELP) in the United States Senate uncovered numerous abuses in
the JWOD Program. For instance, two billion dollars in sales to the federal
government yielded an annual average wage to blind and disabled employees of
merely eight thousand dollars. The Federation has a long history of seeking
reform in this program. The interest of the HELP Committee provides the Federation
with a new opportunity to urge reform. Resolution 2006-06 outlines the various
reforms that we will seek in Congress.

Several years ago the Convention
passed a resolution concerning the danger of quiet cars to all pedestrians but
especially blind pedestrians. Noel Nightingale, a leader in the NFB of Washington
introduced resolution 2006-05. This resolution represents an evolution of our
position on the quiet-car problem. In this resolution we call on Congress, the
executive branch, and car manufacturers to mandate that vehicles emit sound.
The resolution also describes various necessary characteristics of the sound
to ensure safe travel for pedestrians.

The following resolutions
demonstrate both evolution and access to programs. Kevan Worley, president of
the National Association of Blind Merchants, sponsored resolution 2006-02. In
1982 Congress made blind vendors in the Randolph-Sheppard Program the exclusive
purveyors of food and beverages on the interstate highway system. Recently the
United States Department of Transportation published a notice of proposed rule
making for a new pilot program called the Interstate Oasis Program. This proposal
had no provisions for the participation of blind vendors. The Interstate Oasis
Program will be in direct competition with blind vendors because it allows others
to offer food, beverages, and other services near the interstate highway system.
In resolution 2006-02 we call upon the United States Department of Transportation
to facilitate the participation of blind vendors in the Interstate Oasis Program.
The Convention passed two resolutions regarding the Library of Congress's Books
for the Blind Program, one of the oldest federal programs serving blind Americans.
The National Federation of the Blind has been a strong advocate for this program
for many years. Two resolutions were necessary because of recent attacks on
the program.

Jim Gashel proposed resolution
2006-12. In this resolution we express our continued support for the plan to
convert Talking Books produced by the National Library Service for the Blind
and Physically Handicapped from analog technology to digital technology. We
also urge Congress to provide the necessary funding for this modernization of
the Talking Book Program.

Brandon Young, a senior
at the University of Hawaii and a summer intern at the Jernigan Institute, introduced
resolution 2006-10. Under present law funds allocated to the Books for the Blind
Program cannot be transferred and used for any other purpose within the Library
of Congress. Unfortunately the United States House of Representatives included
language in its appropriation bill that would allow other uses for the Books
for the Blind by the Librarian of Congress. The Senate version of the appropriations
bill does not contain this damaging language. In resolution 2006-10 we urge
Congress to follow the Senate lead by ensuring that funding proposed for the
Books for the Blind Program may not be used for any other purpose.

The United States Department
of Transportation (DOT) is placing the guaranteed public access rights of blind
people who use guide dogs in jeopardy because of its overly broad definition
of a service animal. DOT includes emotional support or comfort animals in its
definition of a service animal for purposes of air travel. Emotional support
animals are not considered service animals for other modes of public transportation
such as buses and trains. Owners of emotional support animals are falsely claiming
public access rights to all places of public accommodation because of the United
States Department of Transportation's overly broad definition. Many emotional
support animals may not have had training for proper behavior in public places.
Priscilla Ferris, president of the National Association of Guide Dog Users,
and Michael Hingson, a Federationist and official of a guide dog school, brought
this problem to our attention by introducing resolution 2006-08. In this resolution
we call upon the United States Department of Transportation to create a separate
definition for emotional support animals that preserves the distinction between
these animals and service animals.

The Convention passed three
resolutions regarding access to information. Cary Supalo, a past NFB scholarship
winner and tenBroek Fellow, president of the Pennsylvania Association of Blind
Students, and a member of the board of directors of the NFB of Pennsylvania,
and Mark Riccobono, director of education for the Jernigan Institute, sponsored
resolution 2006-03. In this resolution we strongly urge the College Board and
the Educational Testing Service to ensure greater nonvisual access to online
Advance Placement materials and practice tests. The resolution further stipulates
that blind students who require testing materials in accessible formats should
not face delays in the test-administration process.

Bob Ray, president of the
Merchants Division in Iowa, introduced resolution 2006-09. Automatic Products
International, a leading manufacturer of vending machines in the United States,
has discontinued production of an interface device for its coffee maker that
allowed vendors to use a speech synthesizer to operate the equipment independently.
In this resolution we affirm our commitment to work with manufacturers to promote
the creation of accessible vending machine equipment. We also urge state licensing
agencies to include speech access as a main criterion in determining which vending
equipment to purchase for its programs.

Two former scholarship
winners introduced resolution 2006-11. Stacy Cervenka, who works for the United
States Senate, and Mike Mellow, who works for the United States Environmental
Protection Agency, have difficulty performing their duties because their agencies
use BlackBerry personal digital assistants (PDAs) as a major form of communication.
BlackBerry products are not accessible to the blind. In resolution 2006-11 we
call upon Congress to urge Research in Motion, the manufacturer of BlackBerry,
promptly to make its products accessible to the blind. We also urge the federal
government to enforce section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act vigorously "to make
BlackBerry products accessible to all federal employees, including the blind."

This brief summary is merely
an introductory description of the resolutions considered and passed by the
Convention. Readers should study the complete text of each resolution to understand
fully our policy on these subjects. The complete texts of all resolutions approved
by the Convention follow.